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>> Italy's far right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is under fire over a spate of racist attacks. Critics saying his anti-immigration drive has created a climate of hate. Since entering a coalition government last month, he has launched a crackdown, closing ports to migrant rescue boats. The UN says it's deeply worried and that it has recorded 11 racist attacks since mid-June.

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Reuters's Crispian Balmer in Rome says Salvini has hardly endeared himself to rights groups.>> At the weekend he paraphrased the World War II dictator Benito Mussolini by saying that the more enemies he had, the more honor it was to him. This came after a Roman Catholic weekly magazine compared him to Satan on the front cover because of his stance over migration.

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>> An assault on black Italian athlete, Daisy Osakue on Monday has turned up the heat. She was injured when unknown assailants hurled an egg at her face. The athlete believes it was a racist attack, though Italy's police have questioned whether race was the motive. Whether or not Italy's tough migration stance has sharpened divisions at home, it has found a backer in Donald Trump, who feted Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the White House on Monday.

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>> He said that other European countries should also be very firm against letting illegal immigrants enter. And he was very, very warm in his praise of what the government had been doing.>> Salvini denies his government is fostering hate, and says the real problem is the influx of more than 650,000 migrants since 2014.